(For a newer draft of this story within the completed story, click here.)
Two car doors slammed shut in short succession. A jittery gray squirrel scampered across the road and over a bank of charcoal snow scraped to the curb. Sam maneuvered around the low branches of a naked maple tree. Melissa crossed the front of her car and looked towards the building. She noted the pattern of condensation accumulating in an inverted arc on the plate glass windows. Don't sit there. Drafty. Sam grabbed the brass handle. Good thing I have my gloves on. Melissa entered and Sam followed.
A jingle notified the nonchalant staff of a new presence. A thirty-something woman abandoned her perch atop a stool and sauntered to the counter. Her loose black pony tail hung stiffly, structured with grease. Melissa let Sam take the lead, giving her more time to digest the menu's options. She paid no mind to the menu titled Coffee Drinks. She was interested in something sweet. Lattes. Candy cane. Ick. Ginger bread. Egg nog. Hm.
Sam, who frequented such establishments, had no need to be educated about what was available. Instead, he took his surroundings in. He assessed the chalkboard on the wall as though it were a piece of art. He did not care for the swirls of cyan and carrot that formed a whimsical script announcing Specials. A bit much. As Sam approached the register, he realized he had not decided between his two usual orders. He felt nervous with the barista's eyes upon him. "I'll have a..."Coffee. Bitter. Americano. More bitter. Said 'A'. "...coffee. Black." The woman looked to Melissa with dreary disdain.
"And I'll have an egg nog latte," Melissa added.
"What size?" the woman croaked.
Not too much. "Small or tall... Whatever means not a lot." Sam grinned at his wife's directness. He put his arm around her and drew her closer. She rubbed his back through his wool coat.
The woman spun away and set about making the drinks. Melissa studied her movements and admired the authoritative air with which she meted out the ingredients. Careless, yet precise. She's an old pro. Must have made thousands of drinks.
Sam looked around. Psychedelic posters with curling corners and strings of beads strewn over the light fixtures made him feel out of place. Let it go. He surveyed the landscape of available seating. The room looked as though everyone had left in a rush. No chairs were pushed under their corresponding tables. Sam disliked the haphazardly appearance. "Where do you want to sit?"
"Not by the windows."
***
With drinks in hand, the two departed from the register. They gravitated towards a booth underneath a shelf laden with books, nearly as far away as possible from the storefront. As Sam approached the table, he quickly scanned the spines. Almanac. Patterson. A local something-or-other. Grisham. Nothing. Nothing. How To Win Without Trying. Kafka. Hey, Kafka! Wait. Kaffa. Sam’s frown was subtle.
Melissa set her drink and book down and slid across the vinyl seat adjacent to the wall. The lunar landscape of tiny bubbles undulated in her mug. She watched the froth slosh around and nearly crest the rim. A candied bouquet was lifted on the steam. Smells good.
Sam took his spot across from Melissa. He unraveled his scarf and draped it on the back of the seat next to him. He took a hesitant sample from the piping coffee. The black liquid streamed across his tongue, vanquishing all previous hints of taste and establishing something bitter and earthy. A fine brew.
The two exchanged smiles. Sam swigged his coffee again; Melissa was afraid to scald her tongue. Both of them peeled open their books.
Melissa was enthralled with her mystery novel and was eager to continue. The main character was in a bind so tight, the author spent the last several pages describing the impossibility of being loosed from it. Melissa found it difficult to hypothesize about the outcome. All the characters seemed shifty and two-faced. She expected the protagonist would barely escape and the antagonist (or antagonists, whoever they were) would be caught after a harrowing pursuit. She suspected one might elude the authorities. Perhaps an evil-doer would be killed, nullifying the chance for justice to be served. Whatever the outcome, it would be a pleasure to find out how it happened. Melissa once explained to Sam, who harbored a pronounced disdain for the formulaic, her interest in mysteries with an analogy to eating. “You know you’re going to be full when it’s over, but that doesn’t discourage you from a meal. The pleasure is more in the chewing and tasting than in the fullness afterwards, which is really a lack of pain or annoyance than any outright good feeling.” Sam understood her better afterwards, but was in no way persuaded to digest such a book.
On his side of the table, Sam was grinding his way through an oft-lauded classic. He was averse to leaving any project undone and, therefore, would not give up on a story. Nonetheless, his reading experience was lifeless. The author’s language was bulky and, in Sam’s opinion, the narrative was excessively tangential. Although he would not consciously admit to as much to himself, Sam was bored. Believing it to be an important book—one that anyone who aspired to being “educated” should read—he trudged on.
A nearby conversation poked its way into Sam’s consciousness. Two women, dressed up for each other's benefit, were brazenly discussing recent happenings at the local private school. "I'm not saying Aubrey shouldn't be going to TCS—her father pulls down six figures I bet. Tom said his firm is quite successful, personal injury I think—it's just that kids like her tend to be a...drag on the rest of the students. I’m sorry but she’s not TCS material. Just talk with her once. She’s a perfect dolt. I think I’m going to say something to Dr. Reeves and see if anything can be done." People are so unkind. Disappointed in his fellow customers, Sam looked intently at Melissa. He looked at her eyelashes and the sliver of space between each.
She slouched and rested her head on the uncomfortably hard back of the booth. As her eyes shuttled back and forth, she unwittingly wagged her left foot under the table. The protagonist had created a diversion that reduced his mobility handicap. Her countenance displayed a placidity Sam admired.
His story had been describing early industrial urban squalor ad nauseum for the last few pages. Sam looked up from the tattered pages of his used copy. Hate to bother. Melissa, absorbed in what she was reading, did not notice his gaze. He tried to continue reading, but could not string together more than a few sentences. Between the nearby conversation and his pressing thoughts, Sam could not concentrate. Caffeine was beginning to accumulate in his brain. He resolved to interrupt.
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